Alleyway

Review

by Jonathan Sutyak

If you are familiar with Super Breakout by Atari, then you are familiar with Alleyway. Both games have you moving a paddle horizontally across the bottom of the screen to deflect a ball into blocks. On screen, you see a border with your paddle and bricks inside. Outside the border is the stage #, score, and number of paddles remaining. Pressing a button releases the ball to eliminate blocks by bouncing and removing any blocks it touches.

Alleyway sounds easier than it is. While easy to play, it is difficult to complete since not all of the blocks stay in one place and some levels have them moving in different patterns. The speed of the ball also increases as it bounces off objects, so if you let the ball speed past your paddle you lose paddle use. You can earn extra paddles with every 1,000 points, but you can't have any more than 9 paddles at a time. Bonus stages also give you the opportunity to gain extra points, but a time limit makes clearing all of the blocks difficult.

The graphics are nothing to brag about, but that is okay since different toned squares are basically all you will be looking at. Most of the sound effects are made by the ball hitting things so a small "ting" is what you hear the most. However, despite the simplicity and lack of variety, Alleyway is fun to play. Since the screen doesn't move, the game is easy to follow without requiring you to squint. Games of this type always play well on the Game Boy.